Karaoke Murders In The Philippines

The New York Times reports on the mysterious link between karaoke and murderous violence in the Philippines. A Frank Sinatra song is singled out as especially dangerous:

The authorities do not know exactly how many people have been killed warbling “My Way” in karaoke bars over the years in the Philippines. But the news media have recorded at least half a dozen victims in the past decade and includes them in a subcategory of crime dubbed the “My Way Killings.”

Killings are not limited to the Philippines. In the past two years alone, a Malaysian man was fatally stabbed for hogging the microphone at a bar and a Thai man killed eight of his neighbors in a rage after they sang John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads.”